Open Analytics in the City of Edmonton: How the Government and Citizens Use Data to Improve their Community

Municipal governments continue to be data rich but information poor, lacking a consistent view of their overall performance, or even a measure of what constitutes good performance. Performance is often driven tactically by a reaction to negative publicity. The result is that many municipal governments struggle to provide high-quality services to their citizens. This is compounded as municipal leaders face increasing budget pressures as the demands for services and the costs to deliver those services have increased. There is also increased scrutiny, demands for accountability and transparency.

How do you know if you’re doing an effective job? One way is to ensure you have one complete view of all government programs, budgets and services so that you can make confident decisions.

The City of Edmonton is doing that today. By using the vast amount of data they collect on programs, services, citizens and other stakeholders, much of that open data, they have the foundation of information to make critical decisions. They are using Tableau to analyze and consume that data to give them deeper insights real-time into how they are serving their citizens and delivering the “business” of government. Join us as the City of Edmonton shows how they have been able to transform their municipal government and deliver the best government for their citizens.